Mouton wins first Serpent F180 Grand Prix

Serpent hosted the first official Grand Prix event for their unique F180 formula car over the weekend. The Grand Prix was held as part of the annual Serpent Nations Cup event which took place at the Monsanto track in Lisbon, Portugal.

Eight drivers travelled from France, Sweden, Netherlands and Portugal to attend the event and were greeted by glorious weather as they hit the track for practice on Friday.
Format for the F180 Grand Prix was a series of 5-minute qualifying heats followed by a 20-minute final on both Saturday and Sunday.

On both occassions it was Jacky Mouton that topped qualifying for the rear wheel driver 1:8th scale race car. On Saturday the Frenchman TQ’d ahead of local ace Luis Simoes while on Sunday it was Dutchman Rob Kuyper who came closest to him.

In Saturday’s Leg 1 Final, held under floodlights, Mouton led home fellow countryman Benoit Enicolo for a French 1-2 with Simoes completing the podium. The fastest car on the track was that of Stanley Bauer setting a best lap time of 21.537 seconds with the distinctive orange coloured F180 eventually crossing the finish line in fourth.

Sunday’s second final saw the Toyota F1 finished F180 of Dutch driver Michel Nijman capitalise on a late problem to hit Mouton to claim victory. Nijman was on the pace throughout the weekend but in Saturday’s final an early race incident cost him over 2-minutes and despite a strong recovery drive he could only manage fifth but the combined result was still enough for him to claim the overall runners up spot behind Mouton while Enicolo secured third.

Encouraged by the success of the first official F180 Grand Prix event and the number of driver enquiries about future races, Serpent are already making preparations for a series of F180 Grand Prix events for the 2008 season details of which will be announced here on Serpent.com early in the new year.